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Tag: Orbit

I wander to the place I know least and for a while I maybe like best, in a way; as an idea, as a thought, as a concept: the abstract liking of something from which you are distant, the fascination with unfamiliarity, the lure of the other; the stranger, the comfort, the awe.

The steady roll on an invisible plane, the cool electric hue. The very slow seasons. Even the unwitting humour, lame though it is. It is a laconic planet I find here, unruffled, smooth and cyan. The awayness of it all, as at the end of despair. A well-neighboured distance; bookended, escorted by giants: significant in its own right but overlooked, overshadowed and, through no fault of its own, just not taken seriously: why would that be me?

There is no life here, but there is otherness, and that in itself is interesting. It feeds my curiosity: to go a step further, to move beyond. To tumble on a different axis, to fall upwards; float frozen but not still, to sense a different kind of heat on a newly defined horizon. I expect to be alone here, but I’m surrounded by character: here, in the outskirts, in the slow moving cold, there are others like me: how did we all get here? What projected us into this orbit, so far away, it would seem, from the soul, so within?

These layers, these clouds, these rocks and these crystals, these rings, this ice and these moons, this magnetotail. They are not, perhaps, home, but they are a meaning all in themselves, and they are somewhere, beautiful. True.

For quite some time I enjoy this tangentiality and become part of it, willingly, coolly; I relish the arm’s length attention I get. Nobody knows me here, or cares who I am, but my aloofness my look and my languid demeanour are being noted. My hair the peroxide silver of this unbreathable atmosphere and my clothes the black of the all that surrounds me. If you know where I am you can find me, and find me foreign and alien too.

Yet after a while I miss the simplicity of warmth. Not that I know what that means, but it means that I’m out in the cold, and I want to come back now, closer to home, closer to the sun, closer to people who don’t understand me, closer to something I vaguely remember as love. This strangeness leaves me estranged from myself, and enjoying it now seems an effort. Soon, I know, I will have to let go, and I realise now that I’m not living my life in chronological order. That puzzles me for a moment until it occurs to me that time too is down to perception, and there will come a time when it’ll all simply blend into one, as it must.

Entropy.

(Yet still, yet again, only more so, always more…)

Out here I thought I felt a sense of freedom, until that sense became quite oppressive. That, too, was a surprise. And so I let go. Slowly, at first and then readier, more. This is not for me, after all, this agreeable spectacle, this isolation: it could quite easily turn into a habit, a mannerism, a cliche, a role.

The young man at a soirée (it was that more than it was a party, a dinner, or drinks) who’d looked at me and said: ‘are you for real?’ That’s when I knew I was in danger of becoming a caricature of myself, and Uranus could be my place no more.

I like this now, this clarity, this resolution. This immense relief too, not to have to be defined by weirdness forever. Strange, yes, curious, always, different, maybe (then ‘different’ to what?), but not impenetrable and not obscure.

Not even, in that sense, mysterious, really: there are so very few mysteries in the universe, apart from the multiverse of all possible universes itself, and that, too, is only a matter of consciousness and the cumulative number of brain cells firing at it: one day it will be just another reality too. Like blossoms, like spring. Like the awakening, too.

I’m getting better at this, being me. This walk seems to be doing wonders…

The Ice King doesn’t speak, and I don’t ask; the questions are too many, too small: too trivial by comparison.

I feel my body tremble, not with fear, not with cold; with unfamiliarity? I look him in the eyes, and their glint reassures me: I want his power to be absolute, but benign.

As I take off my heavy boots and both pairs of socks, I expect the ice under my feet to sting or to burn me, but with my eyes on him still, and his gaze still steady on me, there is only the glow that expands from inside my spine.

I take a step towards him, and his presence feels no longer silent, it hums, or so my mind makes me believe; in truth he lies still and alert, and my breathing is no longer shallow: I want to melt into him, meld with him, and as I step closer, he sits up just enough to extend his hand and bring me into his orbit.

Now the colours, the touch, the sensations, the heat from within, the cold from without; this surface I lie on is as hard as polished marble, this skin that I breathe is softer than ermine, but his grip and his hold and his motion are firm; no longer can I tell what am I and what he, my focus is gone, the ice and The Ice King, the light and the scent are all one; I dissolve into it, into him, into the fire of him in me; into the ice that is no longer chill but a mould of clean edges that envelop us like multiple layers of soothing gauze, like everything ever imagined but more, and more real, like losing myself, my thought and my fear, like everything ever felt but not known, like owning the universe through being owned, desiring only being desired, like being The Ice King through being his, not wanting not pining not longing not hoping not dreading not doing not acting not willing not giving not taking not talking not buying not selling not looking forward and not thinking back, not imagining and not dreaming. Being and ceasing to be all at once in the now and forever.

The Now. The Forever. We breathe. We hold on to each other. I think I smile, but I can’t be sure. He tilts his head back and exhales. I feel his breath on my neck and bury my face in his shoulder. The light is orange and blue and a bit purple too, and we are embedded in the ice that feels now as if it had melted and made a pool of clear water that seems to flow warm, although this may just be the pulse in my temple and the beat of his heart and the protective embrace of his arm and the comfort, the comfort of him.

We lie thus for hours, or so it seems, as I drift in and out of awareness, and The Ice King is deep in my mind, quiet and quite majestic. I know I can’t stay here but nor can I leave. I bathe in the silence, but words are bubbling inside me. I want for nothing now, but I wonder how deep, how old, how immaterial is the ice. I lift my head to look at his face, in repose. His lips are not of this world. I hesitate. I pause. I cannot ask permission. I cannot resist. I kiss him.

EDEN was originally published in random order. Starting 1st August 2018 it is being reposted in sequence. To follow it, choose from the subscribe options in the lefthand panel (from a laptop) or in the drop-down menu (from a mobile device).

If you are the owner of the link that brought you here, please update it; or if you know them, then please do let them know.

EDEN was originally published in random order. Starting 1st August 2018 it is being reposted in sequence. To follow it, choose from the subscribe options in the lefthand panel (from a laptop) or in the drop-down menu (from a mobile device).

If you are the owner of the link that brought you here, please update it; or if you know them, then please do let them know.